Fentanyl, heroin and painkillers prompt surge in opioid deaths in New York

Richard Baum, acting director of National Drug Control Policy, spoke about the drug crisis at the JFK International Mail Facility, where Customs and Border Protection officers have stepped up their efforts to stop fentanyl from entering the country.
Seth Harrison/USA TODAY Network

The DEA said it seized $4 million worth of heroin from a Bronx apartment on Aug. 2, 2017.(Photo: Drug Enforcement Administration)

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New numbers show Westchester had 107 opioid-related deaths in 2016, compared to old report of 59.

Increases in overdoses related to illicitly produced fentanyl and prescription pain pills appeared key to the revised drug-death stats, the data show.

Addressing questions about the surge in opioid deaths, state health department officials focused on efforts underway to curb the drug crisis.

"The opioid and heroin epidemic is a national crisis that New York state is taking aggressive steps to combat," said Jill Montag, a health department spokeswoman, referring to a state law passed in 2016 that sought to address the epidemic.

About $200 million is also being spent this fiscal year in New York on support for prevention, treatment and recovery programs to address chemical dependency, expand residential service opportunities, and promote public awareness and education, Montag noted.

Delays in overdose reporting linked to factors such as toxicology testing were responsible for substantially increasing the 2016 death toll from the prior report, the state records show.

In Rockland County, the number of opioid-related deaths rose to 36 according to the latest report, while Putnam County's death toll increased to 15.

Dutchess County reported 48 deaths.

Statewide, excluding New York City, the overall number of opioid-related deaths was 1,879, up from 1,238 in the prior report.

The trends in fatal overdoses between 2015 and 2016 vary by county when comparing the newly reported figures.

For example, Westchester’s 107 opioid-related deaths in 2016 increased from 83 in 2015. By contrast, Dutchess County saw a decline in opioid-related deaths to 48 from 57.

Rockland’s death toll increased to 36 from 27 during the same period, and Putnam had 15 deaths, up from 13.

Statewide, excluding New York City, the number of opioid-related deaths increased to 1,879 from 1,520.

That is a rate of 16.7 deaths per 100,000 population in 2016, up from the 13.5 death rate in 2015.

Opioid commission

The federal commission called on Congress and the Trump administration to take more than 50 specific steps it said would result in expanded treatment, stronger prevention, and saved lives, USA Today reported.

“Our people are dying — 175 people a day, every day, are dying in the United States from this epidemic,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, chairman of the opioid commission said. “It is unacceptable … not to step up to the fight and do everything that needs to be done to stop the dying and stop the suffering.”

The commission’s report did not include a price tag for its menu of recommendations. And while it called for more resources for everything from research to treatment, it did not endorse specific dollar amounts for those efforts.

The commission called for 56 specific policy changes that included creating more drug courts, improving access to treatment and training health-care providers on responsible opioid prescribing.

National drug crisis

The annual death toll from drug overdoses soared from 36,450 in 2008 to 64,000 in 2016, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote in USA Today's report.

On average, seven Americans die of a drug overdose every hour. As a result, drug overdose is now the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50.

Nearly two-thirds of 2015 drug-related deaths in the United States involved opioid drugs. The causes are pharmaceutical painkiller drugs such as oxycodone, well-known illegal drugs such as heroin, and new synthetic drugs such as fentanyl.

Addressing the drug crisis, federal officials recently announced that for the first time, deaths from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, have surpassed the number killed by prescription opioid painkillers.

Fentanyl, in all its many forms, is a synthetic opioid that’s popular on the street because it offers a powerful high that surpasses that of heroin, USA Today reported.

Fentanyl is also laced into other drugs sold on the streets, where unsuspecting buyers might not even know what they’re using. That’s one reason people across the country are dying from fentanyl and similar compounds at the rate of 55 each day.